How the Digital Age has Transformed Employee Engagement

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Michelle Kiss is a digital marketing specialist in San Francisco who focuses on employee productivity, business process management, and marketing automation. She deeply believes that a balanced diet is chocolate in both hands.

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There is no doubt technology has forever changed how companies and its employees function. Michelle Kiss shares how organizations can maximize employee engagement in a digitized workplace.

With a ping there, a text here, and a slack notification on top of that, how do employees stay focused on their work?

Distracted employees are often less engaged, and much less productive. In fact, 60% or less of work time is spent productively. That doesn’t leave much of the day to fully immerse oneself with work.

Employee engagement looks at how committed and motivated an employee is toward the work that they’re doing and the company they’re with. McKinsey Global Institute found that employees with higher engagement levels are 20-25% more productive. Time and time again, research shows how valuable higher employee engagement is, and companies are striving to keep their workers engaged in the hopes that they stay longer and do better work.

The Digital Age has undoubtedly brought with it a swarm of technological advancements, but how has all of this technology impacted employee engagement?

Greater Skills Gap

With Millennials added to the workforce, it’s not uncommon for companies to be navigating 4 generations of workers at a time (Silents, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Gen Ys or Millennials).

Each generation has a different work ethic, preference, and skillset. Millennials are recognized as the most tech-savvy of the bunch, and more easily adapt to new technology and computer skills. An interesting trend to note is how the onslaught of technology has digitized more roles. 30% of the 13 million new jobs created since 2010 have required high-level digital skills, and Millennials have been filling up those digital roles with more ease.

As Millennials swarm to the workplace, often in pursuit of these digital roles, the skills gap between generations also widens. This requires more customization on the employer’s side, as attracting new employees, creating a solid onboarding experience, and promoting greater engagement across the board has less of a one-size-fits-all solution.

Different Forms of Communication

Communication is available in a myriad of different forms.

It’s easier than ever to get in touch with someone, share information between coworkers, and collaborate from anywhere.

While this sounds wonderful, simply having more communication doesn’t necessarily mean engagement is higher. Information is often siloed, and 74% of employees feel like they’re missing out on company news and important information.

One of the biggest challenges with internal communication is finding the right tool. Slack, Snapchat, Instagram, Skype, and texting are some of the more prominent inventions of the Digital Age, and communication needs to involve those. Dynamic Signal found that 55% of employees said they would feel more informed and engaged if they could communicate using a mobile app. This means communication doesn’t stop at a desk monitor, but rather goes straight to the employee themselves, no matter where they are.

Now that’s more engaging.

More Feedback

Greater innovations in technology has turned feedback from lousy comment cards that get tossed in the trash, to multi-million dollar feedback loop systems.

Social media played a large role in this. When companies took to Twitter and started responding to their customers — in public! — , the tables turned. Businesses realized they needed to go above and beyond to keep and gain loyal customers. That trend quickly flowed to the workplace.

HR now has more ideas for engagement activities, learning opportunities, and work perks to offer in order to entice and keep all generations around. While it’s impossible to make every single employee happy, it is possible to make many employees much happier through utilizing valuable feedback.

Blurred Lines: Work and Leisure

Being able to contact someone 24/7, or work from anywhere in the world has certainly blurred the lines between work and leisure time. It’s now possible to take a video call from your vacation or send a work email or ping randomly at midnight or whenever a work thought crosses your mind.

Newer technologies, hot spots, and wi-fi make work easier to access. In more recent times, employees find themselves working during leisure time, and often without extra pay. This is not because they are forced to, but employees that are genuinely interested in their jobs, or more engaged, tend to work extra in their free time.

The Digital Age has made it easier to be a workaholic, but a workaholic with more flexibility.

Cognitive Overload

There can truly be too much of a good thing.

Thousands of products are churned out every month, claiming to increase productivity and efficiency. Companies turn to technology in the hopes that employees will get more done, communicate better, and maximize time.

Ironically, this very technology that was developed to make lives better, has become the heart of the problem. Cognitive overload is when one feels too distracted or overwhelmed by the amount of information and data to take in.

As employers continue to focus on improving employee engagement, new platforms are developed to help support them. But, while human interaction will never be fully replaced by technology, the way in which companies listen and respond to their employees has been transformed forever. And hopefully for the better.